The Egyptian Accreditation Council (EGAC) is the sole accreditation body in Egypt. It is recognized by Presidential Decree number 312/1996 as the national body for the assessment and accreditation of conformity assessment bodies. Presidential Decree number 248/2006 re-organized EGAC to be the sole accreditation body in Egypt and gave EGAC independence for the evaluation and accreditation of conformity assessment bodies.

• EGAC’s vision is to have accreditation at the top of the conformity assessment activities, and to give confidence in the competence of the conformity assessment bodies to ensure the credibility of their reports and certificates in compliance with international standards.

• EGAC’s objectives are to inspire confidence in the competence of organizations providing calibration, testing, inspection and certification services, and to actively seek mutual recognition arrangements with similar regional and international parties.

• EGAC’s activities include accreditation of testing labs according to ISO/IEC 17025, calibration labs according to ISO/IEC 17025, Medical labs according to ISO 15189, inspection bodies according to ISO/IEC 17020, and certification of management systems according to ISO/IEC 17021.

• EGAC plays a very important role in the Egyptian economy as it sits at the top of the Egyptian Quality system and contributes to increasing exports, and the competitiveness capability of Egyptian products in international markets.

• EGAC is recognized in all its current scopes of accreditation and plans to extend its signatory status to include the scope of FSMS according to ISO/IEC 17021-1.

• EGAC also extends vertically by adding new scopes of accreditation to its accreditation scheme like persons certification according to ISO/IEC 17024, product certification according to ISO/IEC 17065 and extending its scope to include accreditation of proficiency testing (PT) providers according to ISO/IEC 17043.

• EGAC has been an associate member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) since June 2004 and became a full member of International Accreditation Forum (IAF) in May 2006. EGAC applied for recognition under the ILAC/IAF MRA/MLA in August 2006 and signed the MRA/MLA agreements with ILAC and IAF in 2009 with the agreements being renewed in 2013. We expect a joint re-evaluation to occur in February 2017.

• EGAC became an associate member of EA (Contract of Cooperation) in 2010 and is planning to apply for mutual recognition with EA in 2017.

• EGAC was recognized by the ARAC Accreditation Council in 2014 and the AFRAC Accreditation Council in 2014.

• EGAC also participated in the preparation and launch of the bylaws of the new International Forum for HALAL Products.

• EGAC is a part of a twinning project with EU represented by BMWi of Germany, DAKKS of Germany and ACCREDIA of Italy. The project is entitled “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of The Egyptian Accreditation Council (EGAC)” aims to support the Egyptian Accreditation Council and to prepare EGAC to sign an MLA agreement with EA.

• In the framework of activities of EGAC – EU twinning project, a series of five seminars were held on Benefits of Quality and Accreditation in Supporting and Development the Capabilities of Industrial Community in Egypt and Enhancing the Competitiveness of Egyptian Products. These five Seminars planned to be held all over Egypt in different areas of Egyptian Governorates.

• A small group of representatives from different industrial and concerned private sector organizations in various parts of Egypt participated in the seminars.